Quantification and integration of Kanos model into QFD for optimising product design

With increasing concerns on customer needs in todays competitive market, the issue of incorporating customer requirements into product design arises the interest of both researchers and practitioners. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a well-known methodology for customer-driven product design. However, conventionally, QFD analysis has a major challenge in understanding customer needs accurately. Kanos model, which studies the nature of customer needs, provides a way for a better classification of customer needs. However, seldom research contributions are found in terms of integrating Kanos model with QFD quantitatively. In this research, a novel integration approach is proposed. At first, Kanos model is quantified by identifying relationship between customer needs and customer satisfaction (CS). Next, both qualitative and quantitative results from Kanos model are integrated into QFD. Finally, a mixed non-linear integer programming model is formulated to maximise CS under cost and technical constraints. In this research, an illustrative example associated with the design of notebook computers is also presented to demonstrate the availability of the proposed approach.